Oscar scam: Crime Branch team leaves for Gujarat

Bhubaneswar: Even as the Crime Branch (CB) of Odisha police interrogated Oscar Group CMD Prabhas Rout and the company’s Gujarat head Taraprasad Hota in connection with their involvement in the Rs 240 crore chit fund scam , a special team of the agency left for the state on the western coast on Thursday to dig out more information on the company's activities in that state.

Sources said the team led by a DSP-rank officer will investigate the company’s business operations in Guajarat. The team will also gather information on the events and stage shows organized by the company there to promote Odia movies produced by it.

CB sources said preliminary investigations have revealed that the company has 19 properties in Gujarat,including some offices and land. The agency will probe all angles related to the company’s establishment and operations in the State, sources added.

Official sources said the investigating agency also interrogated Rout’s son to elicit more information on his business.

Notably, some Odia film actors, including Uttam Mohanty, comedian Tattwa Prakash Satpathy popularly known as Pappu Pom Pom and some lady artistes had visited Gujarat to promote these films. While it has come to notice from Satpathy's 2014 poll affidavit that he had taken a ‘personal’ loan of Rs 2.5 lakh from Rout, he later confessed to have taken Rs 3.94 lakh in all from the Oscar chief towards election expenses but claimed that he had repaid the entire loan in the meanwhile.

These revelations have strengthened the growing public suspicion about the complicity of several Ollywood actors in Rout's Oscar Group scam.